FSU football: Three thoughts on how Adam Fuller coordinates his defense

FSU football has struggled to maximize its talent on defense in the last few years. FSU defensive coordinator details how he plans to maximize it.

FSU football has completed its second week of fall camp, and the defense has been described as “dominant” by Mike Norvell in both scrimmages.

That’s a term that couldn’t describe them since the 2013 national championship season.

FSU defensive coordinator Adam Fuller inherited a ton of talent and got a significant boost when potential first-round draft pick Marvin Wilson decided to return for his senior season.

There are talent and experience at all three levels of the defense. The key the last few years has been a lack of actual coordination of that talent.

Players were not lining up correctly, execution of blitzes was awful, linebackers were hitting the wrong gaps, and the defense struggled with overall communication.

I was one of the first to point out how much Adam Fuller had improved his defenses when it looked like Mike Norvell would be the hire for the Noles.

The clip above is a prime example of why he’s been able to make such an impact in the first year. Let’s talk about three thoughts from that nearly two minutes of knowledge he dropped after Saturday’s scrimmage.

Matchups In the Nickel

No disrespect to the last two defensive coordinators, but we would not have gotten such a detailed description on the fly the way Fuller described it in the clip.

It’s easy to see Fuller understands how he wants things to work in certain situations. However, more importantly, he has to know what his players are capable of before they can do this sort of matching up or plug and play types.

That’s why they are putting these players in a game like scenario like the clip below:

As I said on Twitter, this is probably interference, but it’s live-action for Jarvis Brownlee against one of the best wide receivers in the country.

These situations are the type of action that allows the coaches to evaluate their players. So when it’s game time, they know who’s the best player to insert according to the situation, instead of just rolling with who plays that position. He said a key thing, “they want to play enough zone coverage, so they are not definable by who’s on the field.”

That’s something the previous coordinators struggled with, as they ran mostly a base defense with very few wrinkles.

Play Offense On Defense

An attacking FSU defense? Man, it seems we haven’t seen that since 2013, and the numbers back it up. The Noles had a measly 69 tackles for loss in 2018, and just 74 tackles for loss last season.

Adam Fuller’s defense will be attacking instead of reacting, meaning they want teams to react to what they are doing.

Fuller wants to make that as difficult as possible by making the opposing quarterback have to think as much as possible:

"“We want to be non-rhythmic in a way that when the ball turns over, we want a quarterback to say, well, I think they’re going to do this…but they could do this or that. Right, the moment teams can say hey, when this is on the field…when they line up like this…this is what you’re getting…then I’m doing the players a disservice. If the opponent knows exactly what it’s going to look like, it’s going to be hard.”"

In the past few years, opposing offenses could look at how FSU lined up and the personnel and had a good idea of how to attack.

Being Multiple

We’ve heard past defensive coordinators talk about being multiple on defense, but I’m not sure the Noles ever got to that point.

Fuller said, “We gotta make sure we can define what we want to be when we have that group on the field, but also have enough multiplicity that there’s always a first, second, and third pitch that could possibly be thrown on each play. It’s a fine balance of doing what you do best the most, and also having enough non-rhythmic calls that you can play offense more.”

You may have heard of offensive coordinators talk about “breaking tendencies” or setting up defenses by doing certain things. That’s what Adam Fuller is talking about here, except on defense.

Think of it as a mixed martial arts fight. If a fighter always throws the same combination, they become easier to defend. A fighter can’t afford to be one-dimensional in mixed martial arts anymore, and the same goes for football on offense and defense.

Adam Fuller seems to understand that concept better than the last two defensive coordinators, and I’m excited to see how this defense will perform when they take on Georgia Tech in a few weeks.

I expect to see some growing pains here and there as they did miss significant time in the spring, but overall I expect the defense to carry this team in 2020.